GUATEMALA CITY -- It is both telling and disturbing that so many of those wishing to be regarded as "futurologists" seem to prefer Thomas Malthus to Adam Smith. For his part, much of Malthus' work was premised upon a view that world conditions are essentially static.
Since Malthus overlooked the dynamic features of the real world, his predictions were limited to extrapolations into the future based upon existing trends. This makes it unsurprising that his grim predictions about the limits to population have been contradicted by nearly two centuries of evidence. Since so many futurologists tend to follow the same path, it is likely that their pessimism will prove to be unwarranted.
Pessimists about the future often point to apparent demographic patterns whereby a growing imbalance in global age distribution is seen to aggravate the problem of overpopulation. We are informed that these demographic trends have implications for consumption, production, markets, education, services, the environment, investments, for war and peace. In grand style, populist impresarios of doom offer something to alarm everybody and to catch the attention of every interest group.